With Marvel’s popular and successful foray into films with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’ve finally decided to get back into comics. I grew up a big fan of X-Men and other superheroes but haven’t really kept up since the 90s. Thus begins my grand catching-up of the last ten years of Marvel comics, events and stories.

Thanks in large part to trade paperbacks and the digital convenience of Marvel Unlimited I can make relatively quick progress, and I’ll write down my Final Thoughts for each collection here on my blog. Like my gaming Final Thoughts, this will be full of spoilers. You’ve been warned!

Norman Osborn’s Dark Reign officially took over the Avengers team in 2009, replacing most of them with his own ex-villains and creating the Dark Avengers. Instead of canceling the Mighty Avengers series, Marvel soft-rebooted it, whipping up a whole new team that exists as a mostly pointless international task force (since they’d be hunted down by Osborn in the US). The C-list heroes serve to elevate the status of the unlikable Hank Pym, who’d been one of the main skrull infiltrators during the Secret Invasion.

The roster is pulled together from a current list of available heroes, some starring in their own series, others in diaspora during Dark Reign. Scarlet Witch (who’s later revealed to be Loki in disguise – a neat twist), gathers them together to create a team to mostly deal with omega-level threats outside the US.